Editor's note, Feb. 27, 2019:This story was originally published in July 2014, when bull rider McKennon Wimberly was starting to reconsider his rodeo career. Since then, he has been divorced and remarried, and is now father to two children. He has continued to ride bulls and work as a cowboy along the way. Wimberly is taking his final ride this week at RFD-TV's The American Rodeo, where $2.35 million in prize money will be distributed. Wimberly will ride in Thursday's semifinals at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth. The finals are Saturday and Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. After this rodeo, Wimberly says, he'll retire from the sport and looks forward to spending more time at home with his family.

Flies landed on the beast's back as the cowboy got ready for his ride. He pulled a flank strap around the bull's backside and a bull rope with a leather handle around the animal's shoulders, letting it sit loose. He still had time before they would meet again in the chute facing the arena at the Mesquite ProRodeo Series.

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It's the most dangerous 8 seconds in sports, but on this recent evening in June, McKennon Wimberly was smiling. He used to shadowbox behind the chutes to get more pumped before strapping himself onto 2,000 pounds of angry beef.

But after everything he's seen the last few years — the coma in 2011, the trigger he pulled in 2012, the birth of his son in early 2014 — he takes it easier now.

"I ride better when I'm that way," he said. "Why not have fun at your job?"

Keeping God busy

Wimberly stands 5-foot-9 and is built lean and strong, common for a bull rider. He wears a small soul-patch goatee on his chin. He dons a dirty pair of Levi's 501s, a brace for his right shoulder, a brown cowboy hat with a toothpick in the hatband and a light blue button-up shirt before his ride.

He often wears a silver and gold buckle he earned as the 2013 champion of the Professional Roughstock Series, a national rodeo league for bareback, saddle bronc and bull riding.

He's overwhelmingly polite, yet the nature of being a bull rider means he's hardheaded and stubborn. He gravitates toward the scariest and most dangerous challenges and will tell you he doesn't take no for an answer.

"I think when God created me, he did it to keep from being bored," Wimberly said, "and I keep him busy."

His father was a champion bull rider. Growing up, Wimberly couldn't imagine doing anything other than riding bulls. Now, at 26, he's quickly becoming a veteran in the bull-riding world.

He doesn't ride unless there's good money in it. His body's been broken too many times. There's a metal plate in his left jaw and a steel rod in his left leg. Scars crisscross his body from various surgeries.

Today, his time is spent at his home in Millsap, watching Westerns with his 6-month-old son, Wilder, and taking the baby out to the pasture where Wimberly mends fences and breaks colts.

"I'm really not too old for a bull rider, but my body's just been beat up," he said. "It's hard for me to go hard."

Stubborn

The bull was being stubborn.

It wouldn't enter the right chute, so the cowboys had to smack its backside to coax it through. When it was finally in place, Wimberly climbed over the chute's railing and sat on top of the big black bull.

He smiled.

This was his last ride before surgery that could take him out for the rest of the season. He had to wear a brace or his shoulder would dislocate.

The rodeo in Fort Worth is closer to his home, but that would involve riding tougher bulls — which could damage his shoulder even more. At Mesquite, the competition is more about how a cowboy rides, rather than which bull he draws.

"I don't need to get on ranked bulls, or my arm will fall off," he said. "I just got a wild hair and decided to ride this weekend."

After climbing from the chute, another bull rider tapped Wimberly on the shoulder. He gathered the other riders and told them to take a knee behind the chutes. They prayed for protection and thanked God for the opportunity to ride.

"We spend as much time thanking God for what we have as we do asking to keep us safe," Wimberly said. "We don't have to go to a job we hate every morning.

"We get to do what we love."

Losing his balance

In January 2011, Wimberly was competing at a Professional Bull Riders event in Anaheim, Calif., when everything went wrong.

The ride started normally, the bull bucked six times, and Wimberly seemed to hold his own. Then he started to lose his balance and leaned forward as the bull bucked back.

Their skulls collided, and Wimberly's helmet went flying. He went horizontal and spun on the back of the bull. They collided in midair again; the impact tossed Wimberly's limp body to the ground.

The only thing Wimberly remembers about Anaheim was being on the beach the day before. He woke up two weeks later in a California hospital.

"They didn't expect me to walk or talk again," he said. "I don't take no for an answer very well."

At rehab sessions, they timed the cowboy as he slowly walked around the hospital facility. After one or two sessions, he left.

He could get more rehab hauling 50-pound bags of feed around the pastures of his family ranch in Cool, in Parker County, he said. In no time, he was on the back of a horse.

'InVinciBULL'

The cowboy put on his vest, made of soft padding designed to distribute impact.

His helmet, carbon-fiber with a sticker that says "InVinciBULL," has a stronger chin guard than other helmets. He made the upgrade after the accident.

He climbed on the bull as he and five other cowboys got ready for the ride. One cowboy stood on the gate, pulling the rope tight as Wimberly rubbed it with the riding glove on his left hand. The friction heated the rosin he'd added earlier, making it sticky, easier to hold on to.

He looped the rope around his hand, then under his fingers, then back around a second time. He punched his left hand, making sure everything was tight and in place.

"Hashtag YOLO," said a cowboy with the bull's tail in one hand and Wimberly's brown hat in the other.

The PA system started playing hard-driving rock music to get the audience excited. The announcer began touting Wimberly's accomplishments, words such as trophies and champion echoing off the rafters of the arena.

Wimberly scooted forward, forcing his body closer to his left hand. Then, he nodded softly three times. A moment later, the door opened and the bull began to move into the arena.

Bull rider McKennon Wimberly fails to last eight seconds on his bull at the Mesquite Rodeo on June 6, 2014.

(Michael Ainsworth/Staff Photographer)

Pushing the limits

Since the 2011 accident, Wimberly hasn't stopped pushing the limits of his own body. But every time he gets on a bull, he's facing those limits head-on. Each new ride is one closer to his last.

A year to the day after the accident, he got back on a bull for practice. His friends and family said he was being foolish. Looking back, he agrees. But he was determined to not let the accident change his daily life.

"It was something that was supposed to mess me up," he said. "To me, it was nothing."

Around that time, he broke his jaw. When his jaw was wired shut to heal, he attended a Professional Bull Riders event in Florida. He got word there was a steak dinner for the riders that night, so he found a pair of wire cutters and cut himself out so he could eat.

On a June afternoon two years ago, Wimberly made headlines again.

He agreed to give a hitchhiker a ride at a gas station in Weatherford. Wimberly told police later the man was visibly drunk and had urine on his pants. When the hitchhiker refused to get out of the truck, they began arguing, according to records from the Parker County Sheriff's Department.

In the argument, Wimberly's father was hit in the head with a full 18-pack of beer. Wimberly pulled out a .22-caliber revolver and shot the hitchhiker in the leg, according to sheriff's records.

Wimberly was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The hitchhiker was arrested for criminal trespassing. The district attorney in Parker County decided not to pursue charges in January 2013.

Safety "hadn't been in my mind at all before he came along," Wimberly said. "I worry more about not getting to play with him, hang out with him."

One morning, several weeks after his last ride and his shoulder surgery, Wimberly woke up with his son. He fed Wilder a bottle of milk and put on an old John Wayne movie about a gunslinger who fell in love and became a peaceful farmer.

It reminds him of his own life.

Kaitlyn Wimberly, his wife, always said she'd never marry a bull rider, but she fell for Wimberly and they married last August. Now, he stays at home with Wilder while she gets up at 5 a.m. to work with her cutting horse — she's a champion in her own realm.

The new parents don't want Wilder to ride bulls. Wimberly said he won't pressure him, but he has a feeling he may want to anyway. Bull riding runs in his blood, after all.

Wimberly put his son into a highchair while he unloaded the dishwasher. Wilder grabbed his father's belt from the table and began chewing on his silver and gold belt buckle.

"All my life growing up, my No. 1 goal was to be a No. 1 championship bull rider. That buckle is my PRS championship buckle," Wimberly said. "Now it's just his play toy."

Bull Rider McKennon Wimberly plays with his six-month old son, Wilder, at his home in Millsap, Texas.